Marruecos se une a la Agencia Africana de Medicamentos
The African Medicines Agency is still in the process of being set up after several years in which it has been on standby. At the moment, the countries that make up the entity are in Addis Ababa to extend the procedure. Morocco is one of the nations attending the meeting and the Alawi country has ratified the constituent treaty of the organisation.
The Kingdom joins this confederation, where it reaffirms its willingness to begin to enter into the distribution of medicines on the continent. Thus, Morocco is beginning to consolidate itself in this association, where the North African nation aims to make this union even bigger than it is.
"As a member of the African Union and the regional leader in the pharmaceutical industry, especially in terms of infrastructure, technology and expertise acquired over the years, Morocco remains very committed to high quality medicines and is aware that the health and safety of the African citizen depends on quality medicines and the effectiveness of the same," said Mohamed Arrouchi, Morocco's permanent representative ambassador to the African Union and the UNECA.
The Ethiopian capital brought countries together for a ceremony to deposit the instruments to continue the institution. The event was organised by the Office of the Legal Adviser, in addition to Minata Samate, the Commissioner for Health, Humanitarian Affairs and Social Development of the African Union.
The African Medicines Agency (AMA) aims to regulate the capacity of countries in the field of medicines. This is to ensure that every citizen of a member country has good access to medicines to treat diseases and problems, and, above all, that they are safe, effective and of good quality.
It is a project that began to take shape in 2009, when the first idea arose from the situation in which Africans found themselves in the face of medical problems. Despite the years it has been running, the plan is still paralysed and has not yet been implemented. The director of this agency is Michel Sidibé, a Malian who was the country's minister of health and social problems.
In 2021, the treaty for the establishment of the institution finally came into force after the fifteenth member, the Republic of Cameroon, joined. Today, there are only 18 nations that are permanent members of the African Union and have ratified the necessary instruments for its creation. These include Algeria, Benin, Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, Gabon, Ghana, Guinea, Mali, Mauritius, Namibia, Niger, Rwanda, Seychelles, Sierra Leone, Tunisia, Zimbabwe and now Morocco.
However, other countries have not yet provided assistance, but have signed the treaty. These include Togo, Uganda, Sierra Leone, Tanzania, Senegal, Republic of Congo, Madagascar, Guinea, Ivory Coast, Egypt and Burundi.
In Africa, there are still many nations that are unable to obtain medicines for their populations and other areas that do not even have access to them. One of the most recent examples is COVID-19, which is leaving a huge number of people dead, and it is all because vaccines are not reaching the continent. As a result, many more variants and mutations of the virus continue to be generated on the continent and spread rapidly across the globe.
Today, the deadliest disease suffered by Africans is malaria. Malaria is a disease caused by parasites transmitted through mosquito bites. Health experts claim that in 2020, mortality from this condition increased eightfold compared to that of the coronavirus.
It is therefore very important that this drug agency is developed and implemented on the continent at once, as the disease problem is getting worse and worse and African citizens do not have the resources, unlike in other parts of the world such as Europe or North America, to stop epidemics.